Hiatus Over!

I have been a terrible blogger. I can't believe I went all Fall without posting! I know you've all been longingly anticipating my witty insights into the world of fiction.

I'll been on a pretty eclectic reading schedule lately, especially since I've gotten addicted to Showtime's Homeland. Darn television show taking up my reading time. Below is my new favorite novel, just to convince you that television hasn't completely rotted my brain (although we're in a TV renaissance, people! If you haven't watched The Wire, you haven't lived). Speaking of TV, Maria Semple, a former writer for Arrested Development, recently published a scathing yet hilarious portrayal of Seattle: Where'd You Go, Bernadette?

Where'd You Go, Bernadette?

by Maria Semple

• Five-way stops
• A North Face jacket and jeans passing for "fancy" restaurant wear
• A plenitude of tech nerds
• Irritating earnestness
• The most common response to anything: "no worries"

Sound familiar? Then you must be a Seattle-ite! and you must also read this book.

Hark! A Vagrant

Recently I've been reading more nonfiction, which is a little odd because I've never really liked nonfiction. Then I experienced a terrible moment of truth: I'm reading nonfiction because I've reached the advanced age of 31. Soon I'll be confused by pop stars and horrified by new television programs!

Damn, I'm already confused by Justin Bieber and new television programs do horrify me (what the hell, 666 Park Avenue?). And I'm reading nonfiction? I may as well embrace old age.

Let me explain my reasoning; when I was working as a public librarian I noticed a decided correlation between a patron's age and the about of nonfiction he or she read. For example, the older the patron, the more nonfiction books requested and checked out. Thus, reading nonfiction = aging. I'm cool with this.  I'll wallow in my love of the BBC, being a curmudgeon, and eating dinner at 3:45PM. Oh, stereotypes!

Kate Beaton is rad.

Anyhow, to ramble back to the subject of books, Kate Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant is the best sort of nonfiction: a hilarious take on history in comic form.

Beaton is Canadian, so I've learned quite a bit about the history of our neighbors to the North. She also touches on the French Revolution, Ben Franklin, Tesla, famous writers, and much more. I've always loved history but have had a difficult time keeping important figures straight; Beaton's humorous take on the subject really helps me remember who was who.

If the comic below doesn't convince you to read Hark! A Vagrant, something is probably wrong with you.




Kate B.'s amazing blog: http://harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=202
(Click to enlarge image.)

 

Kerry is a genius!

This is a super quick, gushing post about what great taste my Bookmate Kerry has. I just finished Code Name Verity (read Kerry's fabulous review here) and I DEVOURED it. I can seriously say that it is a beautiful book and I am not ashamed to admit that I cried at the end.

I just loaned my Kindle copy to my dad, as he is obsessed with World War II and I thought he would enjoy Verity. Speaking of my Kindle, I am very pleased that Amazon finally got with the times and now allows users to "loan" their Kindle book copies to one other person (14 day max period, the owner cannot read the title when it's loaned out).

It's entirely possible I just discovered this feature. I may not be giving Amazon enough credit.

Anyhow, I am about to go purchase Code Name Verity as a hardback. Adios, book friends!

The nerdiest injury of all time? Discuss.

Since Elizabeth bravely shared her traumatic Port-a-Potty experience at Sasquatch, I thought that it was only fair that I dish on my own most embarrassing moment of the past six months.

So I had been hearing good things about A Song of Fire and Ice by George R.R. Martin for AGES. I bought A Game of Thrones about three years ago on the strength of several trusted book friend recommendations, but I just couldn't make it past the first fifty pages. First of all, there's the author's name. Seriously - he just HAD to go by both Rs?  Couldn't he just use one?  I mean how obvious of a Tolkien imitator was this dude? My BS meter was not pleased.

And then there was the book itself. It started out all right, but I kept getting caught up by the (SPOILER ALERT) incest in the first 50 pages. EWWWW. I mean really. So I stared and stopped it about three times and then mentally consigned it to the permanent "will never finish" pile, along with War and Peace and Pillars of the Earth.

But then the HBO series came out and people kept raving about it and I got curious. I should note that I am constitutionally incapable of watching something based on a book without reading the book first. And I really wanted to watch that damn show. So I picked up A Game of Thrones determined to do better this time. And I found that once I got past the first fifty page, I was hooked. 

Martin is a fabulous storyteller - able look at every situation from multiple points of view; to keep his characters consistent enough to be believable, yet changeable enough to be fascinating; and to weave a plot of ever-increasing complexity without ever losing me as a reader.

And that's where we run into problems. I made my way through the first and second books at a relatively brisk pace, but when I got to the third (my personal favorite) I was a little obsessed.  I had just started it and happened to have an entirely free rainy Saturday, so I huddled up in bed to do some serious reading.  And I didn't stop until I finished eight hours later. Which was great until I got up and realized that walking was a bit of a challenge because I'd strained my back rather painfully. Due to reading a Tolkien knockoff for eight hours straight in bed. What's worse is that it took me about five days to fully recover and I did not think of a suitable cover story quickly enough. Ahem, so that's the nerdiest injury I've ever sustained and one of the nerdiest I can imagine happening.

Elizabeth is all heart and told me that getting injured in a Ren Faire joust would be worse.  I think she's right.

Anyhow, that was a long way of saying, the hype is right. You should totally read A Song of Fire and Ice so you can join me in waiting impatiently for the next installment and praying fervently for the continued health of Mr. Martin. Even if I do still think the extra R is bunk. 

Code Name: Verity

Hola Blog Friends! My apologies for the long blog silence and happy belated birthday to Bookmate Elizabeth. Her existence proves that, like fine wine, some things just get better with age. (I am older than her and have, to my horror, not found the same to hold true about myself.)

However, I did not emerge from my Sith cave of silence just to say hello. I was compelled to return because I have just read the best YA book of the year. I know it's only June, but I honestly can't imagine anything matching the fantastic and devastating splendor of Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein. It's up there with Jellicoe Road, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, and Graceling as one of my favorite books of all time. And it's a heartbreaker.

Verity is set during World War II. Our narrator, whose name is one of the book's many mysteries, has been captured in Nazi-occupied France. She's being interrogated, painfully. And she's talking. Or at least writing. Her captors have provided pen and paper for her to provide all the details she can on war-torn Britain. Verity chooses to do so by telling the story of her friendship with pilot Maddie Brodatt.

Maddie and Verity are unlikely friends, their upbringings on the opposite scales of the British class system. But they meet under duress and the upheaval of the war allows them to see the kindred spirit in each other. The war also disrupts the firm lines keeping women in traditional roles and they both pursue callings that in different times would have been impossible - Maddie as a pilot and Verity first as a wireless officer and then with the Special Operations Executive. 

Verity's narrative, despite its stark beginning where she castigates herself as a coward for breaking under torture, draws you in. It's easy to forget during the long stretches set in Britain that, like Scheherazade, she's spinning these tales to keep herself alive at least for a few more days. Her wit, bravery, and joie de vivre, except when she's thinking about the information she's given up during torture and what it means to the war effort, make reading about her and Maddie's adventures together a pleasure. And her gallows humor, constitutional inability to avoid needling her captors, and quick wits make anything seem possible.

Writing anything more about the twist and turns of Code Name Verity seems unfair to readers, as discovering it for the first time is one of those reading experiences that don't come along often. I'd recommend giving yourself a long stretch of time to read it in one go and to prepare yourself for emotional devastation. Each of the characters, even the villains, are so well-drawn and human that when the fortunes of war visit them, you feel each loss like a physical blow. Despite the novel's narrow focus on a few characters in a small area of a huge canvas, it humanizes the horror of war with a visceral fierceness that leaves you completely wrung out.

I know that's on the face of things, that's not not the most appealing of recommendations. But a book that conveys such emotional impact in so few pages is one that I will press upon passersby until I'm blue in the face. Consider yourselves warned.

Nonfiction! (Kind of.)

Hola, BookMates fans. Or, you know, person who happened to stumble across our site. (If you stumbled across our site, Kerry and I are AWESOME. You should immediately bookmark us.)

So, lately I've been reading (gasp!) nonfiction. Kind of. Really I'm reading comedian and blogger memoirs, which I feel is equivalent to dipping your big toe in the ocean of nonfiction. I'm not against nonfiction, I just generally don't find it as entertaining as fiction.

I just picked up Jenny Lawson's (aka, The Bloggess) memoir, Let's Pretend this Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir. The reason I picked up Jenny's memoir was because the title resonated with me. There are so many moments in my life (avoidable moments generally caused by me) which I would like to pretend have not happened. For example, I recently went on a date and somehow ended up explaining to my date why I hate music festivals. "Music festivals", you ask? "What could be so bad about a music festival?" (Actually, if you ask this question you've probably never been to a music festival.) Anyway, the reason I hate music festivals stems from my experience at Sasquatch years ago, during which I got stuck in a Port-a-Potty (horror of horrors) for what seemed like five hours but was really probably five minutes until this burly frat boy broke open the Port-a-Potty door, not because he was trying to help me escape but because he was angry that I was taking so long. Soon afterward I lost one of my favorite flip flops in the ten inches of mud covering Sasquatch and was forced to wander around the Gorge with one flip flop, traumatized from the Port-a-Potty experience, fending off a group of dudes who asked me if I wanted to "drink with them in their van" (answer: hell, no) until I found my campsite.

I really wish I could pretend telling that story on a date had never happened.

Now you all know that story! Telling it on our blog seems to make it seem less embarrassing (right?). I also just realized I am poorly imitating Jenny Lawson's mode of writing, but obviously I am not a good writer and she is hysterical and a fantastic writer. Read her memoir. And her blog.

I finally got my grubby little paws on Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns). I have a huge crush on Mindy Kaling. I want to be her bff. Not only is she intelligent and humorous, she also just seems like an awesome person who would totally be down with hanging out in yoga pants, watching bad movies, and eating froyo directly out of the container while listening to Flo Rida (my new workout music love).

I just started her memoir, but so far it's all that I expected it to be: warm, hilarious, and peppered with adorable photos of Mindy as child. Purchase this (or wait for it in the absurdly long library queue, like I did), ASAP. Enjoy!

Stewart O'Nan

My long blogging hiatus is over! I have been consumed with everyday activities (work, exercise, doctor's appointments, etc.) and, somewhat appropriately, I have been reading Stewart O'Nan's newest work: Emily, Alone.

O'Nan writes beautifully about the minutiae of everyday life. He manages to make the ordinary fascinating and all of life worth concentrated attention.

The titular character of Emily, Alone is an aging widow accompanied by her dog, Rufus, and her sister-in-law, Arlene. I think many readers might be tempted into immediate pity and concern for Emily, but she herself rarely descends into self-pity. Instead, Emily enjoys the small pleasures of life and contemplates the process of aging and memory. I found myself also taking pleasure in Emily's pleasures: a comfortable routine, a daring walk in the snow, learning to drive again.

While nothing much happens in Emily, Alone, Emily's joy in her small adventures is both heartwarming and satisfying.

If you haven't already read Stewart O'Nan, definitely do so. You won't be disappointed.

Other O'Nan favorites:

Last Night at the Lobster

Wish You Were Here
(The precursor to Emily, Alone. These books can be read independently.)

Stalkers Beware...

I've been meaning to write about Deb Caletti's Stay for several months. And the issue is becoming pressing, as my library copy is EXTREMELY overdue AGAIN. As in I checked it out, read it, loved it, meant to post on it, and then had return it and check it out again. True confessions time - together Elizabeth and I are singlehandedly funding a librarian position at the amazing Seattle Public Library due to our extraordinary ability to rack up overdue fines. At least it all goes to a good cause!

Anyhow, Stay. Guys, it was great. For two reasons:

1) It was set in the Pacific Northwest and it actually felt like it was set in the Northwest. I checked the cover flap and Deb Caletti apparently lives in Seattle. Well you can totally tell, as she gives such awesome local landmark namechecks. From El Corazon to the Deception Pass bridge, she does a wonderful job of weaving the setting into the book. And more than just name checks - she describes the varying parts of Washington state well and evocatively, from Seattle to the Skagit Valley to the Olympic Peninsula where Clara and her father retreat for a summer.

2) And while I put this second, it's actually my number one reason for loving this book. In Stay, Deb Caletti destroys the extremely disturbing trend in YA fiction (represented most prominently by our most favorite of books, Twilight) of making stalkers seem like good boyfriend material. However, I am getting ahead of myself.

Stay operates on two timelines. In one our heroine, Clara, is spending the summer with her father on the Olympic Peninsula, away from their Seattle home. Her father, a well-known mystery writer, is using the time to finish his latest book, but they're primarily away because of the second, earlier storyline, in which Clara meets Christian. Christian who seems like the perfect boy when she meets him at a high school basketball game - good-looking, foreign, and, most of all, super into her.

Caletti does an excellent job of spinning out their story, told by Clara's future voice, so that you understand how she got caught up in the heady rush of their relationship. But as she details the pretty charming beginning, Clara also points out signs that she herself missed, signs that indicate that their relationship is headed for deeper water. I don't want to spoil how the story unfolds, but I will say as the narrative progresses it becomes truly creepy. And not in a paranormal sort of way, but in 'wow, that could happen to someone I know' sort of way.

Anyhow, I'd highly recommend Stay for anyone who loves a good Northwest setting, found Edward to be a bit of a creepster in Twilight, and, most of all, for anyone who DIDN'T find Edward a creepster in Twilight.

In defense of the unlikable heroine: The Splendor Falls

So here’s something I’ve been thinking about recently. Has there been a move in YA towards more likable heroines? From Sarah Dessen to Meg Cabot, heroines in YA fiction seem to be trending….nice.

And while I enjoy reading about characters I identify with (and anyone you talk to, after I’ve paid them $5, will be happy to tell you how nice I am), it’s also a refreshing change to read about someone who isn’t quite so kind. And I’m not talking about Bella Swan, who, while not malicious, isn’t actually very nice at all to her poor parents or “friends”. I’m talking about someone who is thinking about her actions outside of how they relate to her sparkly boyfriend.

That’s why Rosemary Clement-Moore’s The Splendor Falls comes as such a breath of fresh air. Her heroine, fallen ballerina Sylvie Davis, is an unapologetic bitch on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Her narration is pungent and her observations are frequently spiteful. Sylvie has good reason for being so cranky – her promising ballet career come to a crashing halt with a freak accident and she’s been shipped off by her emotionally unavailable mother to the deep South.

And true to her irritable introduction, Sylvie doesn’t make an effort to think the best of everyone. Her natural reaction to everyone is basically derision and dislike. She's antagonistic towards basically everyone she meets. And she’s a realistic ballerina – she’s grossed out by butter and pats the grease off the pizza she forces herself to eat. Certainly not healthy, but on the mark. I know I'm not making her sound like a whole lot of fun, but she was, and in addition, she felt authentic - like a full fledged character, not a stand in for the reader.

While its heroine is unique, the plot of The Splendor Falls is pretty much straight up Southern Gothic Paranormal (if such a thing exists): mysterious happenings in night cause the heroine to start asking questions and stirring up trouble, bad things happen and she has to decide who to trust. Several other reviews have mentions that it reads like a contemporary Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Michaels. As I am a huge fan of Elizabeth Peters’s seventies-tastic mysteries (seriously try them, they're a delight), this only improved my opinion of The Splendor Falls.

While the plot is nothing groundbreaking, the characters - from Sylvie's Aunt Paula to the Teen Town Council are entertaining. And, in proper Southern Gothic form, the atmosphere is excellent. So if you're in the mood to try a some YA with a bit of bite (um let me be clear that the paranormal happenings are NOT vampiric thank goodness), I'd recommend The Splendor Falls.

_____________________________

If you like The Splendor Falls try:
Texas Gothic. Clement-Moore's second book features the practical and reality-based Amy Goodnight, who finds herself put upon by mysterious happenings and the eccentricities of her extended family. I actually liked Texas Gothic as a whole more than The Splendor Falls, but while the extended cast of characters is more interesting, the heroine isn't as unique, as Amy is pretty darn, wait for it, nice.



Make sure to avoid:
Beautiful Creatures. The plot of Beautiful Creatures makes it sound like classic Southern Gothic with a twist: a male protagonist infatuated with the mysterious new girl in town. Sadly nothing else about this VERY long and pedestrian novel stands out - the characters are cookie cutter and the plot feels drenched in tar it move so slow. Neither Elizabeth or I managed to make it to the end, but I can't say that either of us cared.

We promise Bookmates will be revived!

Life has just been pretty crazy lately and we (mainly me!) have neglected Bookmates. But I promise to post again soon. In the meantime, here is a quick mini-post.

I've gotten back into my eclectic reading schedule lately. Here's a sample of my latest reads:

The Passage by Justin Cronin
This book is long. Really, really long. I'm on page 640ish right now and I think I have about 150 pages left. Anyhow, worth the read but I think it may have needed a harsher editor. Also: freaky viral vampires.

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
I think every one's reading this book right now, and there's a reason why: it's excellent. It's rare that interconnecting stories entertain me, but I was glued to this book throughout the night. Highly recommended.

BUST
Yes, this is not a book. But! I love BUST. It's my feel-good magazine. It's like etsy combined with Jezebel combined with Highlights for adults. Yay!

xoxo

Tasty Literary Treats

The Seattle Weekly's Voracious blog had a post on the five top foods in children's lit. Now this is my kind of debate. I was very pleased to see their inclusion of turkish delight from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Though I'm not a fan of the sticky candy in real life, in the book, Lewis makes turkish delight sound like the most tempting of treats (and to poor WWII-rationed Edmund, it probably was).

Talking about food in books isn't unique to our televised cooking competitions/food-blog obsessed age. In Little Women, Jo and Meg March talked about how it's impossible to read Charles Dickens without having a snack in hand. I found the same thing to be true with The Boxcar Children, which had a way of making even simple bread and milk sound like ambrosia. Reading Harriet the Spy made me long to try a chocolate egg cream (though I had no clue what one actually was). The occasional treats in the Little House girls' stockings made what had to have been a very ancient orange sound amazing.

And finally, there's Harry Potter. The Weekly's list called out butterbeer, but that delightful sounding tipple is just the tip of the food iceberg in Potterworld. I'd estimate fully a quarter of the books are devoted to descriptions of banquets, candy, and/or birthday cake. Is it any wonder that they're some of my favorite rereads? One of the most painful secondhand experiences I've ever had is going with a friend who hadn't eaten to a Harry Potter movie. By the time we hit the second banquet scene, he was whimpering in his chair. I don't want to know the kind of crimes he would have committed for a chocolate frog.

So tell me dear readers, what children's literary taste sensations am I missing?

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

You know how if someone has a particularly lovely or compelling speaking voice the old adage is you'd happily listen to him or her read the phone book? Well that's how I feel about Sherman Alexie's authorial voice. It's awesome and I will read whatever he wants to write for as long as he wants to write it.

That being said, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian feels like the book I've been waiting for him to write since I first picked up Reservation Blues in high school. A semi-autobiographical tale of Arnold “Junior” Spirit, a high school freshman growing up on the Spokane Reservation, TATDOAPTI is at once hilarious and heartbreaking.

Near the beginning of the book, Junior makes the unpopular decision to leave his reservation high school to attend the all-white Reardon High School. What prompts this decision is when he realizes that he will be using the exact same geometry book his mother did in high school. As a veteran of a high school where textbooks often looked like they'd survived the Great Flood, I could sympathize. However, leaving the reservation for school just isn't done and by challenging the status quo, Junior finds himself at odds with his best friend Rowdy and the unwilling focal point of a lot of attention both at home and at Reardon.

Alexie does a masterful job balancing the hopeful (Junior's progress in school and making friends, however unlikely) with the tragic (the body count in this novel is higher than many murder mysteries). He doesn't shy away from the bleakness of the future for many of Junior's family and friends, but he also shows the love present in almost every Spirit family scene.

Junior is the kind of hero you don’t even realize is one until the end of the story. By focusing on his broken brain, general nerdiness, and lack of appeal to the opposite sex, Alexie camouflages the fact that Junior is also willing to walk miles in the blistering sun or freezing cold, face down the majority of the reservation, and, perhaps most intimidating, enter an entirely new high school as a complete outsider in order to get a better education.

Writing a YA novel right now seems to be the thing to do amongst well-regarded novelists. Jane Smiley, Cory Doctorow, John Grisham, and Neil Gaiman are just some of the names flooding the market. With such an influx it's always hard not wonder if their agent suggested they write a YA book because 1) they're hot right now and 2) they're shorter. Thus I approach most of their offerings with a healthy degree of skepticism. However, I don't care if Sherman Alexie thinks YA is the scratch lotto ticket of the literary world. Whatever prompted it resulted in his best book to date - and one I would recommend to any reader I know.

YA is right for Alexie and Alexie is right for YA. His voice - funny and furious - is a much-needed addition to the high school lit oeuvre.

The Wakefield Twins are back

Sweet Valley Confidential - the long awaited follow up to the endless Sweet Valley High series - is finally looking like something more than an urban legend. I've been hearing vague rumors about an adult novel that would feature everyone's favorite lavaliere-wearing, perfect size 6 sisters for years, but had given up hope of it ever getting published. But now, if you visit this website, you can sign up and get an email with a link the first chapter. It looks like the full novel will be published next March.

I know what you're dying to know what the first chapter is holds. And clearly I read it within fifteen minutes of realizing it was available. I won't go in to details, but suffice it to say that the writing hasn't improved, the twins are NOT both living perfect lives in Sweet Valley, and Bruce Patman gets a shoutout. If you read the original series (which I think may have been a requirement for girls growing up in the 80s), it is definitely worth checking out.

Elizabeth's Bookshelf

I've been in a bit of a reading slump (gasp!) lately what with moving to a new apartment and lots of oh-so-lovely overtime at work, so I apologize for my lack of posting. Now that I have a bit more free time, however, my bookshelf selection has expanded. Here are a few of the books I'm currently reading:

Heidi W. Durrow's The Girl Who Fell From the Sky

Durrow's debut novel begins with a mysterious family tragedy. The only survivor is--you guessed it--the girl who fell from the sky, Rachel. As the daughter of a white Danish mother and black G.I. father, Rachel's exploration of her racial identity is compounded by her broken family. Durrow's prose is excellent; deliberate and evocative. Durrow doesn't shy away from hard truths about what it means to be biracial in America or having to deal with difficult family dynamics. My only disappointment was that while The Girl Who Fell From the Sky starts off strongly, the narrative loses some of its drive towards the end. However, I would still recommend this title, and I'm looking forward to more of Ms. Durrow's writing.

Check out Heidi Durrow's excellent blog, Light-skinned-ed Girl.

The Best American Series: The Best American Comics 2009

When I realized that this installment of the Best American Series was edited by Charles Burns, I immediately ordered it. Charles Burns is one of my favorite graphic novelists (if you haven't read Black Hole do so immediately) and I was excited to see which established and up-and-coming graphic novelists were showcased in Comics 2009. So far there's an excellent story by Adrian Tomine and a sweetly sad brother-sister tale by Laura Park. The Best American Series rarely disappoints, so I'm eager to continue reading.

**To build off Kerry's previous post, David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is amazing. I'm more of a fan of his inventive rather than traditional narrative; Cloud Atlas is one of my favorite novels while it took me a while to get through Black Swan Green, so I was a bit worried that I wouldn't be as engrossed by the traditional narrative of Jacob de Zoet. I should never have doubted you, David Mitchell! Jacob de Zoet might be Mitchell's best novel yet. Add your name to the crazy-long library queues now.

Book news!

Two of BookMates' favorite authors, David Mitchell and Melina Marchetta, have new books coming out!

1) David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet has actually just arrived on shelves and there are only 55 people ahead of me in the library queue. So I should have it in hand by the end of the summer, right? Read faster Seattle!

Mitchell never writes the same book twice - each new novel seems to spring from an entirely different genre. This one looks like another leap - a historical novel set in 19th Century Japan. I'm excited because my favorite of his books, Black Swan Green, was also a more traditional narrative structure. The simplicity of form allowed the strength of his writing to shine and I'm hoping his new work will be similar in that regard. But I've also been avoiding reading much about this one, so who knows? Zombies could arrive on page 19 - and with Mitchell in control, I'd probably learn to like it.

2) I've just realized that Melina Marchetta's The Piper's Son is out in Australia now, but not the U.S until next year (I think. I hope. It can't really take longer than a year to publish it in the U.S. right?). I can't wait this one because it's looks to be a sequel of sorts to Saving Francesca, my second favorite of her books (after Jellicoe Road, clearly). Marchetta's most recent book, Finnikin of the Rock, was a bit of a disappointment. I made it through to the end, but have zero desire to pick it up again, so her return to contemporary Australia from Fantasyland is a welcome one.

So those are my currently most anticipated books. Are there any other books coming out this summer that we should add to our To Be Read piles? Mine is currently looking somewhat manageable and that makes me nervous!

The River

I first came across Mary Jane Beaufrand's The River in an author interview on The YA YA YAs. Teen mystery set in the Cascades with a heroine compared to Veronica Mars? Sign me up.

Veronica Severance has moved from Portland to rural Oregon with her celebrity chef mom and her burned-out former public defender father. The hows and whys of her move unfold slowly through the story, but she makes it clear from the beginning she isn't happy about the change. She's taken a while to settle in, but she has hit it off with one of the children in her isolated area, Karen Armstrong. Despite the significant age gap (Veronica babysits for Karen), they've become friends. Her discovery of Karen's body kicks off the action and the rest of the novel centers on Ronnie slowly trying to unravel the chain of events that led to Karen's death.

The River has a lot of potential to be awesome. Its isolated setting in rural Oregon, along the Santiam River, is unusual. Its cast of characters aren't cookie cutter and as a reader you're allowed to slowly get to know them. Speaking of cookies, reading about the food cooked by our heroine's mother drove me a bit crazy (in good way) as I wanted to eat everything she made. But all of this didn't quite add up to a book I wanted to press upon the next person I met.

Here's the thing. If your publisher compares your novel to Veronica Mars and you actually name your heroine Veronica, she better be pretty kick ass. And Ronnie is just...okay. She's the kind of character who figures out a clue and then, literally, runs off into obvious danger without alerting any of the many friendly authority figures dotting the landscape. Veronica Mars may have done the same, but she'd have taken Backup, a taser, and done a bit of recon. I know it's not fair to compare the two, but I I kept wishing Ronnie had a little more zip to her personality and her narration.

I feel pretty torn on how to rate The River. On the one hand, Beauford does an excellent job of grounding the story in a very specific place. Her writing is clear and vivid. You can feel the rural Northwest setting - with the overcast skies and running cold water. And she creates some characters I'd like to know better. Buuuut the action feels slow, Ronnie herself is kind of boring, and I never really bought the romance that develops near the end of the novel.

So I'd say, read if you like Northwest-set novels and/or mysteries, skip it if any of the problems I just outlined sound like deal breakers. That goes for everyone BUT Elizabeth, who should read it so we can dissect whether or not I'm being overly critical of poor Ronnie.

Romance Novel Love! We Will Not Be Ashamed.

Kerry and I were having dinner recently (the B&O cafe has some super delicious desserts, by the way) and during our usual "what are you reading?" update, we both sheepishly confessed that the books on our bedside tables were primarily romance novels. We justified the romance novels by asserting that sometimes you just want to read something entertaining and light.

But then I got to thinking--why should we even feel we have to justify reading romance novels? We shouldn't be ashamed of our love of the romance genre! Sure, romance novels generally are pretty fluffy and light, but they often empower women. There is a growing trend in the romance novel industry for strong, intelligent female heroines. The average reader can easily avoid such gems as The Spanish Billionaire's Pregnant Wife (thanks for that, Harlequin) and instead select well-written, humorous, and entertaining titles from some of the best in the genre. Two of my favorite authors are:

Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Ms. Phillips, or SEP, writes contemporary romance and is known for her lovable characters. If the heroes and heroines tend to be larger than life (SEP specializes in sports stars) their emotions are down-to-earth and obviously imbued with great thought. Plus, her books are almost always hilarious. The crème de la crème of the romance genre, SEP is not to be missed.

Recommended:

This Heart of Mine

Heaven, Texas

Julia Quinn

Julia Quinn is a frothier version of Georgette Heyer. If you've gone through all of Heyer's works and are in Regency-romance withdrawal, Quinn is your woman. Quinn's books lend a mondern slant to the antics of the ton and are extremely accessible and entertaining. I never miss any of her new releases and her novels are guaranteed to grant highly enjoyable reading.

Recommended:

Romancing Mister Bridgerton

The Viscount Who Loved Me

Genre-Defying Joe Hill

Joe Hill's Horns

I have a confession to make: I secretly think people who talk about how bad Stephen King's writing is are being snobby. Another confession: I can be unbearably snobby about books. Final, obvious confession: I can occasionally be a hypocrite.

Stephen King has written some pretty bad novels: Needful Things, Desperation, that awful one about aliens that infest people's intestines and whose title I am too lazy to look up...but the man has also written some amazing books: The Stand and The Shining, for example. It can be argued that Stephen King revolutionized the horror genre. He also seems like a genuinely good guy and never fails to write flattering reviews for new authors.

"Wait a minute," you're thinking; "This Horns book wasn't even written by Stephen King. Why is Elizabeth babbling on about him?" Aha, savvy reader! Stephen King is Joe Hill's father. Joe Hill has decided to follow in his father's literary footsteps, and, in my opinion, both complements and improves upon his father's work.

Hill's first work, 20th Century Ghosts, a collection of short stories, and his first novel, Heart-Shaped Box, both debuted to critical acclaim. Horns was similarly lauded and may be Hill's best work yet:

"Hill has emerged as one of America's finest horror writers....That empathy with the Devil — taking a despicable character and slowly bringing us around to his side — is the sort of thing Hill does best. It's also what's missing from so much of the girl-meets-vampire gruel that dominates the genre these days." Time Magazine

Horns is the tale of Iggie Perrish, who wakes up one morning with a terrible hangover and horns sprouting from his temples. He had spent the night before visiting his murdered girlfriend Merrin's memorial and vaguely recollects doing "terrible things," so the horns don't come as much of a surprise. Iggie assumes that they are a hallucination brought on by the year of rage and grief he's experienced after Merrin's brutal death and the blame his small town has mistakenly placed upon him as her murderer. The horns, however, are something else entirely: a conduit to people's innermost and often inappropriate desires...and the key to solving Merrin's murder.

A story of redemption, revenge, love, and a surprising take on what makes a man a devil and a devil a man, Horns is a genre-defying novel not to missed.

Kerry's BookShelf, Part the First

I'll kick off my inaugural BookShelf post with a pan and a recommendation. I know these are supposed to be our "currently reading" posts, but I'm playing catch up, so I'm going with the first two books I dug off my floor that don't feel quite right for standalone reviews. I was going to include my latest guilty pleasure series, but I've decided they're getting a post all of their own (plus they're buried somewhere under a pile of clothes), so I will include just the tiniest of shout outs.

Book 1:

Soulless. This book pained me. The premise sounded quite promising - Victorian lady born without a soul uses her unique condition to deal with otherwordly complications accompanied by an umbrella and healthy dose of snark. I heard good buzz in the blogosphere and the cover was kind of cool (I hereby confess, I totally judge books by their covers), so I picked it up at the bookstore. Then I started it. And realized I'd rather be watching The Cutting Edge 4: Fire and Ice (surprisingly good by the way). Or watching paint dry. Or reading anything else.

Short story? The prose felt jerky and strained. That may have been a deliberate authorial choice, but I found the word choice jarring, the dialogue unnatural, and the heroine's perspective offputting. Reading it felt like wearing an ostensibly cute shirt that turns out to be a size too small and made of itchy material. So I stuck it back on the shelf and have since tried to pawn it off on Elizabeth no less than three times. So far no dice, but I'm sure this post will convince her she needs to at least try it.

Book 2:

Let the Great World Spin. This was a book club choice and it reminds me why I do adore my book club. The deadline makes me finish books I might otherwise dawdle over and the discussion makes me think about them more seriously than I would on my own. And Let the Great World Spin is a book that rewards serious thinking (and, you know, finishing it).

Set in New York in the 1970s, it tells a story of interlacing characters, all set against a tightrope walker's journey from one tower of the World Trade Center to the other. Impossible to read without thinking about what happens 20 or so years later and McCann doesn't shy away from the emotional implications of that image of the towers.

The best way I found to describing it to friends was a "humanist Cloud Atlas", but that's more a comment on the structure of the novel. The story itself is really is a hymn to New York in all of its glorious, and sometimes painful, complications. My favorite section, the second chapter, packed enough of a punch that I found myself crying on the bus when reading it. Which may sound like an odd reason for an enthusiastic recommendation, but if you can bring me to tears on the way to bowling, you are doing something very right.

When You Reach Me

My sincere apologies for the long blog silence. I've been busy and my laptop has been...well distracted would be one word. The others would all be spelled with asterisks. It spent some quality time thinking it was 1969 and then decided to only allow me to type with the right-hand part of the keyboard. Fun times! But now (knocking firmly on wood), it seems to be in much better spirits and I'm determined to be a much better blogger. So enough technology woes, let's get back to books.

Since my last post, When You Reach Me finally reached me. I know, horrible joke. I really can't help myself. However I hope my sense of humor (or lack thereof) doesn't deter you from picking up this delightful book.

Elizabeth has already posted a more full review, but I had to add my two cents. First of all, bravo to the Newbery committee for picking this book. It's super and winning the Newbery Medal means more people will read it and (I assume, Elizabeth can confirm) more libraries will stock it. And this feels like the kind of book you should stumble over in a library and finish in one go on a summer afternoon.

It's an overt homage to Madeline L'Engle's classic A Wrinkle in Time, but it also reminds me of many children's books set in New York in the 1960s: The Young Unicorns, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and Harriet the Spy.

In fact, heroine Miranda reminds me a bit of Louise Fitzhugh's immortal (I accidentally typed immoral first and that works too) Harriet Welsch, as she struggles to navigate friendships, family, and school, while caught up in her own particular mysteries. But while Harriet's mysteries were largely self-created, Miranda's come in the form of mysterious notes from an unknown sender.

I don't want to say too much about the plot, as its slow reveal is part of this book's charm, but its complexity is a sign of Rebecca Stead's respect for her readers. She introduces challenging concepts, both academic and emotional, and trusts readers to keep up with Miranda as she works to unravel them. This trust, more than the overt mentions of A Wrinkle in Time in the text, is what makes When You Reach Me a true heir to L'Engle's beloved books and such a pleasure to read.

And finally, given my own long-running obsession with Jeopardy!, how could I not love a book in which a major sub-plot is centered around Miranda's mother's shot at appearing on The $20,000 Pyramid? Game show geeks unite!